The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: William D. O'Connor to Walt Whitman, 23 May 1883
Date: May 23, 1883
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00568
Source: The Oscar Lion Papers, 1914–1955, New York Public Library, New York, N.Y. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Jeannette Schollaert and Nicole Gray
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Washington, D.C.
May 23, 1883.
Dear Walt:
A couple of hours ago I got the copy of Dr. Bucke's book. I judge by a cursory and interrupted looking through, that it is tip-top.
I hope it is to be bound, for I don't like paper covers. I noticed three typographical errors, which ought to be corrected. One on page 41, line 4, "brilliant monogram" for "monograph." Another on page 74 (very bad) where my sturdy "I vaunt it and I stand by it," is spoiled by being rendered "I vaunt it and I stand by." On page 145, there is "Thayer, Eldridge" instead of "Thayer & Eldridge."
Success to the book!
I will write to you later. I am much stricken. . . Since Jeannie's death, I have been very ill, and I am still ill and very feeble and broken down.
Goodbye,
Always affectionately
W.D.O'C
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).